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As the nation settles into for a traditional Christmas holiday during slow-moving days of coast and scorching heat set to the soundtrack of Test cricket and insect sounds, this year the nation's summer atmosphere seems, sadly, like no other.

It would be a dramatic understatement to characterize the national temperament after the antisemitic terrorist attack on Jewish Australians during Bondi Hanukah festivities as one of mere discontent.

Throughout the country, but nowhere more so than in Sydney – the most iconically beautiful of Australian cities – a tenor of immediate surprise, grief and terror is shifting to fury and deep polarization.

Those who had not picked up on the often voiced concerns of the Jewish community are now highly attuned. Similarly, they are sensitive to reconciling the need for a far more urgent, energetic official crackdown against antisemitism with the right to peacefully protest against genocide.

If ever there was a moment for a countrywide dialogue, it is now, when our belief in humanity is so deeply depleted. This is particularly so for those of us fortunate enough never to have endured the animosity and fear of faith-based persecution on this continent or anywhere else.

And yet the social media feeds keep spewing at us the trite hot takes of those with blistering, divisive views but no sense at all of that profound vulnerability.

This is a period when I regret not having a greater spiritual belief. I mourn, because having faith in people – in mankind’s capacity for compassion – has failed us so acutely. A different source, something higher, is needed.

And yet from the horror of Bondi we have seen such extreme examples of human decency. The courageous acts of ordinary people. The bravery of those present. First responders – law enforcement and medical staff, those who charged into the gunfire to aid fellow humans, some publicly hailed but for the most part anonymous and unheralded.

When the police tape still fluttered in the wind all about Bondi, the necessity of community, faith-based and ethnic solidarity was admirably championed by religious figures. It was a message of compassion and tolerance – of bringing together rather than dividing in a moment of antisemitic slaughter.

In keeping with the symbolism of the Festival of Lights (light amid gloom), there was so much appropriate reference of the need for lightness.

Unity, light and love was the message of faith.

‘Our public places may not look exactly as they did again.’

And yet elements of the Australian polity responded so nauseatingly quickly with fragmentation, finger-pointing and accusation.

Some politicians moved straight for the pessimism, using tragedy as a cynical opportunity to question Australia’s immigration policies.

Observe the dangerous rhetoric of disunity from veteran agitators of societal discord, exploiting the massacre before the crime scene was even cold. Then consider the words of leadership aspirants while the investigation was still active.

Government has a daunting task to do when it comes to bringing together a nation that is mourning and scared and seeking the light and, not least, answers to so many questions.

Like why, when the national terrorism threat level was assessed as likely, did such a significant public Hanukah event go ahead with such a woefully inadequate protection? Like how could the accused attackers have multiple firearms in the residence when the security agency has so publicly and repeatedly alerted of the threat of antisemitic violence?

How rapidly we were subjected to that cliched line (or iterations of it) that it’s people not weapons that kill. Naturally, both things are true. It’s feasible to at the same time seek new ways to prevent violent bigotry and keep guns away from its potential actors.

In this metropolis of profound splendor, of pristine blue heavens above ocean and shore, the ocean and the coastline – our shared community spaces – may not look quite the same again to the many who’ve noted that famous Bondi seems so incongruous with last weekend’s obscene violence.

We long right now for understanding and significance, for loved ones, and perhaps for the solace of beauty in culture or the natural world.

This weekend many Australians are calling off holiday gathering plans. Reflective solitude will feel more appropriate.

But this is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive. For in these times of anxiety, outrage, melancholy, confusion and grief we require each other more than ever.

The comfort of community – the human glue of the unity in the very word – is what we likely need most.

But tragically, all of the indicators are that unity in public life and the community will be hard to find this extended, enervating summer.